Chapter 4

Still, those words gave me hope again.

Yes.

If I passed the high-school entrance exam, I could leave home.

The high school was in the county seat, over fifty kilometers away. Students had to board.

In my small life, I had never left this poor town.

Never seen the world outside.

If I reached university, I could earn my own living.

Then bring Mother away too.

For the first time in so long, I began to imagine a good future.

From then on, rain or shine, Mother came to collect me after school, a hoe over her shoulder.

She remembered that my deepest despair had begun after I came home covered in injuries.

She thought I must have been bullied at school or along the road.

She wanted to protect me.

She couldn’t be inside the school every moment.

But she could keep me safe on the way home.

Even in bitter winter, through rain and snow, she came with her hoe.

In her heart, she was ready to fight for her daughter’s life.

I was still isolated and bullied at school.

But nothing like the cornfield happened again.

Once Tao Hua entered vocational school, he had the allowance his family sent and no one to control him. He began living recklessly.

He rarely returned for summer or winter breaks.

At most, a few days at Lunar New Year.

Whenever he came home, he inevitably tried to trouble me.

Each time, I fought for my life.

I had survived the worst despair I could imagine. I was no longer as afraid.

Hatred helped me resist too.

Once, when he approached, I defended myself with a pair of scissors I’d hidden, wounding his shoulder.

I think my determination frightened him.

After that, he didn’t dare come near me again.

In truth, I had wanted to make him pay far more dearly.

With Tao Hua seldom home, Tao Jianguo grew less vicious toward me too. He no longer took out his old resentment on me so often.

Things really seemed to be improving.

Hope kept me alive.

Then the admission letter arrived.

The best high school in the county: County No. 1.

At last, I thought, I was about to be free.

Safe.

I ran to show Mother.

She hugged me, laughing and crying with happiness.

That evening, I heard an argument in her room.

Grandma was there too.

High-school tuition cost over six hundred yuan a term. Living expenses would be another one or two hundred a month.

My stepfather and Grandma refused to pay.

I wasn’t their own child.

Why spend money raising me?

They thought letting me finish middle school was more than enough.

Now that I’d graduated, a girl should find work and contribute to the household.

Or stay home, work, and wait for a matchmaker to find a husband who would bring the family money.

Listening, I felt my hope sink again.

Mother kept arguing.

I knew she was unlikely to change their minds.

On the third day, I asked quietly, “Does this mean... I can’t go to school?”

“If I can’t, I could work. I don’t want to stay in this house anyway.”

Mother stopped mixing pig feed and looked up.

After a while, she wiped her hands on her apron and went to the door.

She checked carefully that no one was around.

Then she came back and signed.

“Don’t worry. Over the years, I’ve worked our fields, worked for other people, secretly collected bottles and wastepaper... I’ve saved some money. I can send you.”

Then, very seriously, “Don’t tell anyone. They don’t know.”

I stared at her.

I’d never imagined things could turn out well like that.

The world seemed to brighten.

“Don’t worry. When the time comes, I’ll take you to enroll.”

A month later, while Grandma was at the town market and my stepfather was buying stock, Mother secretly took me and two large bags onto a bus.

We went to County No. 1 High School to register.

She even bought me two new outfits and a pair of shoes.

She was afraid people in the county seat would look down on me if I wore my old clothes.

I was filled with happiness and expectation.

At last, my bright future was beginning.

I would study hard.

Get into a good university.

I would not disappoint her.

Someday, I would take her away and give her a good life.

I never imagined that less than two years later, before I could even sit the university entrance exam, I would fall into the abyss again.

In high school, to save money, I went home only once every two or three weeks, apart from the longer holidays.

Saturday morning home.

Sunday afternoon back.

Later, to avoid my stepfather, I stopped going home for summer and winter breaks too. I stayed in the county seat and worked as a restaurant server.

That way I wouldn’t have to fear him.

And I could earn a little to ease Mother’s burden.

The day she’d secretly enrolled me, Tao Jianguo and Grandma had beaten her together.

Since I was already registered, they couldn’t simply drag me back.

But they made it clear that they would never pay a cent toward my tuition or expenses.

They also tightened their control over Mother’s money.

I didn’t know how much longer she could support me.

I had to earn and save everything possible to stay in school.

During my second year of high school, I came home one weekend and heard that Tao Hua had a girlfriend.

He’d even brought her to meet the family.

After vocational school, he had stayed in that city to work in a factory. His girlfriend worked there too.

She was from our area, though a different county.

I felt relieved.

If he had a girlfriend, perhaps he would finally leave me alone.

That winter, I didn’t return until just before Lunar New Year.

His girlfriend was pregnant.

They were planning to marry.

Tao Jianguo had taken him to her family to discuss the arrangements.

It hadn’t gone well.

They wanted Tao Hua to own a marital home in the county seat.

And provide a bride-price of two hundred thousand yuan.

Two hundred thousand!

At that time, where we lived, it was almost unimaginable.

How rich would a family have to be?

And that was before buying a house.

Mother said Tao Jianguo couldn’t afford either.

He, Tao Hua and Grandma planned to drag things out, hoping the girl’s circumstances would eventually force her to agree.

Her family was not so easily cornered.

She had two older brothers and three uncles.

Once they realized what the Taos were doing, they came over several times.

There were fights.

If he wouldn’t marry her, they demanded three hundred thousand yuan in compensation for the related costs.

If he did, the house and bride-price remained nonnegotiable.

Father and son were badly injured.

Mother cared for them for nearly a month.

Alarmed, I asked if she’d been caught in it.

“No!”

She signed with some pride.

“I’m not stupid. When they came, I hid in my room. I can’t hear or speak, so I pretended not to know anything. Afterward, they needed me to look after them. They didn’t dare hurt me.”

“Good.”

I relaxed.

Not long afterward, a group of men and women came to the house.

Tao Jianguo entertained them in the living room.

Grandma sent Mother out for fruit and food, then told me to serve tea.

I assumed they were distant relatives of the Tao family and thought little of it.

After setting things down, I went back to washing vegetables.

Soon Grandma brought in a well-dressed woman in her forties, with short permed hair.

“This is Aunt Liu. She has a child about your age. She’s heard you do well at school and wants some advice.”

Grandma left us alone.

Aunt Liu asked about my grades and study methods.

I answered honestly.

Then she asked when I’d been born, about my health, and what I liked doing.

It seemed odd.

I thought she was simply making conversation, so I answered.

Toward noon, the visitors left without staying to eat.

After New Year, school resumed.

Eager to leave, I prepared to set off immediately after lunch.

Mother meant to walk me out.

Grandma called her back, claiming a button had come loose on her padded coat and needed sewing.

Mother signed that she would do it after seeing me off.

Grandma scolded her.

“She’s grown! It’s only a short walk to the village entrance. Can’t she go by herself?”

I told Mother not to bother.

I could manage. It wasn’t far.

Reluctantly, after a long string of reminders, she let me go.

To catch the bus, I had to reach the main road outside the village.

The path passed my stepfather’s shop.

As I went by, Tao Jianguo poked his head out.

“Wang Fang. Come here. I need to tell you something.”

I startled and looked around.

It was midday. Almost no one was on the road.

He beckoned.

Unease rose in me.

I pretended not to hear and kept walking.

“Xiao Fang, come here. I only want a word.”

A woman’s voice.

I turned.

Aunt Liu stood inside the shop.

“Just a few words. It won’t take long. Don’t be afraid.”

I hesitated.

With an outsider present, surely my stepfather wouldn’t dare do anything.

So I went back.

At the doorway, Aunt Liu abruptly caught my arm and dragged me inside.

The door slammed shut.

Besides her and Tao Jianguo, a middle-aged man was waiting.

He seized me from behind.

Together they bound me so I couldn’t fight or cry out.

They put me in a black car parked behind the shop.

It drove away, taking a route completely unfamiliar to me.

Before they put me inside, I heard Aunt Liu speak to Tao Jianguo.

“You’re sure there won’t be trouble?”

“Relax. She’s my daughter. Parents arrange a marriage, a matchmaker handles it. What trouble could there be?”

“Then make sure it’s settled. If something happens later, you’ll have to return our money.”

“Nothing will happen. Who cares about her except that deaf, mute mother of hers? I’m only marrying her off. What have I got to fear?”

“Fine. From now on, she belongs to our family. I’ve transferred the three hundred thousand yuan. We’re done.”

...

Three hundred thousand.

Only then did I understand.

Tao Jianguo had exchanged me for money.

He had sold me.

It had to be for Tao Hua.

The girlfriend’s family had been pressing them hard. They’d even come to make a scene over New Year.

No wonder Aunt Liu had asked all those peculiar questions.

No wonder Grandma had insisted on sending us out for food, though the visitors weren’t staying.

And today, she had found a way to keep Mother from walking with me.

They had planned it.

All of it.

They had sold me.

What kind of family could afford a bride-price of three hundred thousand yuan, yet choose to buy a daughter-in-law this way instead of arranging an honest marriage?

Endless darkness seemed to close in.

Help me.

Help me!

I screamed inside and struggled.

No sound.

No movement.

Under the bright midday sun, no one knew I was being sold like an object.

...

The car kept driving away from my school.

A long time later, it entered a compound containing a three-story house.

They took me into a dark room on the second floor.

There were two doors: wood inside, a security door outside, with a large brass padlock.

Thick carpet covered the floor.

The curtains were almost entirely closed, admitting only a narrow strip of dim light.

Soundproofing lined the walls.

Apart from a bed, there was no furniture.

They dumped me on the floor like an old sack.

Much later, they returned and untied me.

A black iron chain now circled my left ankle.

They secured me to the bed.

My world shrank to the tiny space within its reach.

Only then did I realize someone was on the bed.

A man so thin it was frightening, his face sallow and hollow.

Their son.

My future “husband.”

Zhang Hao.